Aerial Photography Field Day

For this exercise, we went out into the field to test out some options for aerial photography.  It was a warm day and the sun was out.  This was an excellent change from the bitter cold of this recent winter; however, the sun reflecting off of the snow did make visibility a bit tricky for anyone not wearing sunglasses.  We saw a demonstration of two rotor-copters, a kite, and a rocket.  The first copter was Joe Hupy’s own, a three armed version equipped with a digital camera on a gyroscope and a forward facing video camera.  The video camera was linked up to a pair of wearable goggles that, when put on, allowed the wearer to see in real time what the video camera was seeing.  This was really cool.  The second copter was a six armed model that was brought along by Max, a student at UWEC who has spent a lot of time with operating copters.  His did not have camera equipment on it. 

 Joe's three armed copter, with its remote control next to it.

Max's six armed copter, with Max next to it.

It started with a calibration.  Max brought the copters, one at a time, up into the air, and manually held them steady via remote control until the onboard GPS was calibrated.  Once this was completed, which took several minutes, the copters could hover in a position without input from the remote control.  Joe’s copter was operated very carefully by Max as he was new to controlling it and also needed to be held steady to take photos.  On the other hand, when Max had his own copter up in the air, he drove it fast, whipping it through the air deftly to show what kind of maneuverability can be possible.

Max operating Joe's copter, concentrating on keeping it steady.

Max's copter, hovering just above the snow covered ground.

In addition to the two copters, we also tested out two additional methods of aerial photography collection: a kite and a rocket.  The kite was roughly human-sized.  It was raised up into the air to a certain height.  Then, a small camera was attached to the string via two cords to hold it stable.  Once these cords were clipped onto the string, the kite was let rise even higher until it was almost out of sight.  The camera was programmed to take a photo every five seconds, and was pointed towards the ground.  Once the camera had reached our desired height, our kite holder walked up the sidewalk with the kite string, so that the camera moved with him and got additional ground photos.  When this was over we reeled the kite back in.

The kite, freshly constructed.

The kite is airborne.

The camera attached to the kite string.

The last method we previewed was the use of a rocket.  The rocket was set on the launcher base by Joe and two small keychain video cameras were taped to it.  These cameras were very efficient; they lacked the features and view screen of a traditional camera, but were able to collect video just fine, we were told.  Joe launched the rocket, which didn't go quite as high as we had been thinking it might, before coming back down and thankfully landing in the snow and not on the sidewalk, where it would have been dashed to pieces.  Upon inspecting the rocket, Joe found that one of the two engines had not fired because it had been put into the rocket body backwards.  Despite this mix-up, we were able to see how a rocket could be used to collect aerial footage, so it was not a failure by any means.  We are all looking forward to seeing the footage from the rocket as well as the imagery captured by the kite and copters.

Joe attaching the keychain cameras to the rocket.